Besides myself, Ryan Shapiro, who headed up the recent FOIA case where he discovered Aaron was on the FBI’s radar as early back as 2007, will be there in person to tell us about his FOIA lawsuit – where he was able to obtain parts of Aaron’s FBI file that were previously unavailable.

Lisa Rein has written a pair of articles in Mondo 2000 with Tracy Rosenberg from OaklandPrivacy.org.

Tracy explains the importance of the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project, and its mission of filing public records requests en masse, in order to retroactively determine what kinds of surveillance equipment and software a city’s Police and Sheriff Departments already have.

We will have a complete tutorial with templates and step-by-step instructions, so you to start doing this yourself, next week.

For now, please read these articles to get a better idea of why this project is so important, for all of us, right now.

(Organizers in other parts of the world: please write lisa-at-lisarein.com with your meatspace location and time, so she can add it here.)

Objective:

Hey folks! It’s been a month and it’s time to reconnect and regroup and help each others’ projects move on to the next level. (Or help each other start a new project from the beginning!)

It’s also time for the long awaited first round of user testing for the Pursuance Project.

The Pursuance Project, if you remember, is the project originally envisioned by Barrett Brown and brought to life by Steve Phillips.

Here’s an interview with both of them explaining the project in more detail, and also explaining the project’s connection to one of Aaron’s blog posts.

Around 5pm – once we’re pretty sure everyone’s there – we’ll be giving some brief introductions and also some project updates. Anyone interested in sharing an update or giving an introduction about a new project is encouraged to do so.

These are low pressure 5 minute talks in a small room, where you are explaining briefly:

the goal of your project

what you’ve accomplished so far

what you need to do next

what you need other people to do next

other information, code, considerations, so people can help determine if the project is right for them

Ways You Can Participate Saturday – Either In Person or Remotely

1) Remote User Testing

a) Basic Remote User Testing

Sign up for Pursuance, create a Mattermost account (to make up for a little functionality that Pursuance doesn’t have yet), and write Steve Phillips at: steve-at-tryingtobeawesome.com to let him know that you are IN on Saturday.

b) Join Some Groups, and Write About What You See

Were you able to look around and follow the conversations?

How did the user interface look?

Did you find yourself thinking “gotta fix the (problem here)” as you were clicking around?

Could you tell what the hell was even going on?

Talk to us dammit! :-)

Email your feedback to the Pursuance Team at: team-at-pursuanceproject.org and Please include: “User Feedback” in the email’s subject header!

2) Meatspace (IRL) User Testing:

a) Noisebridge San Francisco Hackathon from 4-10pm

Come to this week’s Cypherpunks Write Code hackathon from 4-10pm, at Noisebridge, in San Francisco. RSVP (by emailing Steve Phillips at: steve-at-tryingtobeawesome.com) to let us know that you’ll be there in person. (Or perhaps you’re not sure which yet.)

b) Create a “Pursuance Project” at an existing hackathon or at any hackerspace.

See if the folks at any hackathon you are already attending this weekend are interested in having a Pursuance Party. Then provide both IRL and remote user feedback back to the Pursuance Team at: team-at-pursuanceproject.org.

c) Have your own Pursuance Party at home or at any WIFI-enabled restaurant or cafe.

Have a Pursuance Party at any location and invite all your friends! (Tech and non-tech alike :)